


Harry (8)

by orphan_account



Series: failure by design [The Watson Vignettes] [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Backstory, Drama, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Harry-centric, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Kid John, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-17
Updated: 2015-03-17
Packaged: 2018-03-18 08:45:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3563402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry (8): "Three forty-five, and you're awake."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Harry (8)

**Author's Note:**

> All of these started out as two/three sentences each scene on my phone when I was off spinning my headcanons, and they demanded to be written out. Not a full story, rather interrelated vignettes of the same universe. As of now, all from Harry's POV (in second person).
> 
> Please heed the warnings.

Harry (8)

 

Three forty, three forty-one. You’re awake, watch the last digit change. It’s a red light, stretching out over the room. You think of school, of Jessie’s blood. She lost some through her nose today.

John sleeps next door. He snores. (You don’t snore.) He’s five. Today he showed you a story he ‘wrote’ of his own, about an owl and a dog. It was a sad story. The dog died, and the owl was sad forever. He makes many mistakes, but he’s a clever boy. After kindergarten, he always reads a lot at home. He’s been reading for a year. He’s clever, but he’s still small for five. You like reading too, but you don’t like writing. You like drawing. You made him a picture of the owl and the dog holding hands. It’s on his desk. They’re laughing, they look happy. He was angry. He wanted them to cry. He said even if they’re together they’re always crying.

Three forty-three. The numbers look weird. They’re nicer when you write them. John’s look ugly. He makes them look like the block numbers of the clock, but at least they’re not like fire.

You’re tired, you should sleep. You’re awake. You think of the chocolate cookies Emma shared with you in school. John doesn’t like them, but he’s always eating other sweet things. You always tell him grandma will take him to the doctor and they will take out his teeth because all the chocolate and jam will make them black, but he still eats. He kicks your shin when you make the sounds, the bssssss! bssssss! that sounds like angry bees.

He kicks your shin often, especially when you call him small.

You want to sleep. Your blanket is scratchy. The shadows on the ceiling are tall and black. They come from outside, from the street. You don’t like them. They’re moving. One night you looked out your window and looked at the ceiling. You figured out they’re moving because the car lights make them move. You still don’t like them. They scare you.

Three forty-five.

John isn’t snoring anymore. Downstairs, there is noise. A door opening, a door closing. It sounds like thunder. Thunder is always too loud. You don’t like thunder, but the door-thunder is okay. When it happens, nobody hears John’s door opening and closing and your door doing the same. Your ears hear small steps and quiet breathing. You see a shadow moving towards you, try hard to make out the shape. John always looks taller in the shadows.

He climbs into your bed and curls into you, and you pull the blanket over him. He’s shaking, as if it’s cold. You put your arms around him, pat his back. Your head sticks out of the blankets, and you’re looking at the door. You feel like a tower. You’re watching out.

John is warm. He is small. He weighs almost nothing. He disappears under the blanket.

You’re a tower.

You’re trying not to shake, but you don’t know if it’s working. It’s not cold. Downstairs, there is more noise, other noise. You hear John’s breath, fast now. You see the shadows move on the ceiling. It’s a tower, it’s a tree, it’s a man, it’s a woman. The shadows scream and cry. It’s a nasty sound. The shadows laugh. It’s nastier.

You like ghosts more. Ghosts make no sound. They’re small, and quiet, like John.

But the ghosts never come, it’s always the shadows. Sometimes you think it’s good that the shadows are there, because then that means that nothing else is happening.

When they go quiet, there’s no other sound, and it’s too quiet.

You slip under the blanket and wrap yourself around John like that animal with the many arms that lives in the water. It’s hot with John’s small body against yours, with him breathing hard and hiccoughy. You try to pull his hands from your back. He holds tighter. It’s too quiet outside, and he’s too loud. You feel like that one tower now, the leaning one that isn’t standing straight. John weighs much now, and he’s pushing you to the side until you think you’re falling.

Things are running like panic through your head, but you see Hansel and Gretel walk slowly through the forest. Your chest is tight, and you don’t know if it is because of how quiet it is or because John is holding on so tight.

“You remember Hansel and Gretel?” you murmur, and it sounds loud. “Gretel gets Hansel out of the stable. And then they leave the house. Do you remember?”

John is shaking. His head is firm against your shoulder. His fingers hurt your back.

“I’m Gretel. You’re Hansel. Okay? And I’ll get you out of the stable.” Your voice is strange, and you think of the earthquakes you talked about in Geography in school. Mr Leeds showed you the Mercalli scale. You think of five. “And then we can leave the house together like they did. Promise.”

You keep talking. You say, “Shh,” and kiss John’s head. You say, “Gretel always gets Hansel out of the stable, doesn’t she?” and pet John’s hair. It’s soft. Your hands feel like your voice.

“We can leave the house, and I’ll break some chocolate for you from the door. You can have the chocolate,” you tell him like it’s a secret. With you under the blanket in the silence it feels like one. “I won’t make you go to the doctor. It’s okay. You can have the chocolate.”

You can’t think of anything else to say and keep petting John’s hair. After a while, his breathing becomes slower. His hands let go a bit, but still hold on. He presses his face against your throat. It’s wet.

“P-promise?” he says after a long time, and his voice is so small like he is. “Promise, Harry?”

“Of course,” you say immediately. You feel like fire when you speak, even though your face is wet too. “You’ll get all the chocolate you want. And no doctor.”

John giggles bit. There’s a puff of breath against your wet throat. It tickles. It makes you giggle too.

“No, not the chocolate,” he whispers. You feel him shake his head. “Hansel and Gretel. The house.”

You breathe in. Say, “Oh.”

When you walk home with your friends, they’re always trying to see their own shadows. You never play with them and always look ahead. You don’t want to see your own shadow. You don’t want to hear it scream, or cry, or laugh. Sometimes you look at the clock and see three forty-five even when it’s five fifteen or six thirty. Sometimes you feel like it’s three forty-five forever. Sometimes you imagine the tower falling. Today, after John read you the story, you imagined the owl dying too.

John is small. He’s five. He’s small for five. His head reaches your chest only. You will be taller even when you’re ten and thirteen. You think you’ll always be taller.

“Of course,” you say. Your voice is a nine now. In it, houses fall. People panic. Walls crack. You wonder if promises can be broken if the voice that speaks them is. “Of course, John. Promise. Promise.”

Your pinkies promise too.

When John falls asleep, you think of witches burning in ovens.


End file.
